Sharpedo Bluff

[Cresselia92]

"You... don't recognize me? I'm still Soul."

“Nah, it can’t be. Soul is a Vulpix, like me,” pointed out Petram. “And everyone knows that the only way for a Vulpix to not be a Vulpix anymore would be by evolving into a—”

The mental gears clicked at last.

“Wait…” He gasped. “Wait! Soul, you evolved?!” Then, he began squealing aloud. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! You evolved!”

In a heartbeat, Petram hugged one of those slender forepaws, his tails wagging with vigor.

“I’m so proud of you, big sibling~!”

"Welcome, welcome, my very best friends!!!" Ivy said, spreading her wings out as far as she could.

"I called you two here to be the very first to witness the great and mighty Ivy escape the earth and become one with the sky!!" Ivy did a spin and kicked up some dust around her. She had every intention of being as flashy as flowerly possible.

Petram blinked and let go of Soul’s leg, then rubbed his chin in thought. His entire face got covered in sticky glaze… somehow. Though, he didn’t seem to mind much, if at all.

“Ah, yeah. That. You want to become a star or something, Ivy?” he inquired, looking at the sky. “Huh. You might want to wait for nighttime for that, then. There are no stars out yet.”

 

[Adamhuarts]

"I don't want to be Starr! She can't fly." Ivy paused, as if really considering the thought. "Maybe."

"I want to be like big bird and fly!" Ivy said, flapping her wings for emphasis. She pointed towards the cliff's edge. "I'm gonna jump over this place and go wheeeee! It'll be fun!"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

“Wait…” He gasped. “Wait! Soul, you evolved?!” Then, he began squealing aloud. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! You evolved!”

In a heartbeat, Petram hugged one of those slender forepaws, his tails wagging with vigor.

“I’m so proud of you, big sibling~!”

"T-Thank you? It was... mostly an accident."

"I want to be like big bird and fly!" Ivy said, flapping her wings for emphasis. She pointed towards the cliff's edge. "I'm gonna jump over this place and go wheeeee! It'll be fun!"

Soul blinked. "Good luck with that."

Luckily for Ivy, they were basically invincible anyways, and they didn't have real lungs with which to breath... What could be the harm?

 

[Cresselia92]

"T-Thank you? It was... mostly an accident."

Petram beamed and hopped on his spot. “Well! Accidents happen! But hey, aren’t you happy about accidentally evolving?”

But then, his tails wagged a bit slower, with a pensive expression appearing on his muzzle. “I wonder if I’ll evolve someday, too…”

"I want to be like big bird and fly!" Ivy said, flapping her wings for emphasis. She pointed towards the cliff's edge. "I'm gonna jump over this place and go wheeeee! It'll be fun!"

Soul blinked. "Good luck with that."

“Hm…” Petram tilted his head and glanced at Ivy, then at Soul, then again at Ivy.

“Oh… Okay.” He sat down on his haunches and took one cupcake from his box, before biting a piece off of it. “This should be interesting. I always wondered if a rose could fly. Well… always in these last five seconds, but yeah!”

 

[Shiny Phantump]

“Well! Accidents happen! But hey, aren’t you happy about accidentally evolving?”

"Well..." Soul sighed. "I expected it to be different. I still feel small more often than I should. A ninetales is supposed to know who they are. I don't know what kind of sibling I am..."

Soul was nervous. "Maybe a sister? I'd like to try that." She didn't even know if she was correct in thinking like that, but she didn't want to remain unsure forever. She just had to hope she didn't embarrass herself be wrong about her own identity.

It was moments like this that made her wonder if being identityless would be easier after all. Too bad she couldn't be satisfied with that, either.

 

[Cresselia92]

"Well..." Soul sighed. "I expected it to be different. I still feel small more often than I should. A ninetales is supposed to know who they are. I don't know what kind of sibling I am..."

Petram tilted his head, puzzled by those words. Wasn’t evolution supposed to be a sign that someone was grown-up? That they wouldn’t be dismissed too easily just because they were pups.

Small.

Without thinking, Petram looked at his paws.

Small.

Then his body.

Small.

Then his tails.

Small.

Everything about him. Small. Dismissible.

He had to suppress a sigh. Was he going to stay small forever…?

"Maybe a sister? I'd like to try that."

At hearing that, Petram snapped out of his mild trance. A sister, huh?

“If that makes you happy,” he said, before wagging his tails, “then I’d be happy to consider you my big, cool sis!”

He clapped his sma—his forepaws and yapped contentedly. He glanced briefly at Ivy, who seemed eager to try to fly, and he motioned toward Soul. “Hey, Ivy! Don’t you agree that Soul is a big, cool sis? Maybe you could be my other cool sis, too!”

 

[Adamhuarts]

“Hey, Ivy! Don’t you agree that Soul is a big, cool sis? Maybe you could be my other cool sis, too!”

When they turned around, Ivy was completely gone. There was just an empty cliff there... Perhaps Ivy tried a test run, slipped off and fell?

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"Uhh, Ivy?"

Soul muttered a curse under her breath and went to the cliff's edge to see if Ivy was okay.

 

[Cresselia92]

“Did she fly? Huh? Did she fly?” asked Petram aloud, running toward the cliff. He peered downward, trying to spot the Roselia shade, and began yelling. “Ivyyyyy! Yoooooh! Are you flyyyyying yet?!”

 

[Adamhuarts]

"I'm stuck!!" A pause. "I shall break free!"

One of Ivy's wings had snagged on a branch poking out of the side of the cliff. She kept flailing, thrashing, and each time the tear on her wing only grew wider and wider.

"HEEELP!" Ivy cried out, moments before her wing ripped in two and she started plummeting towards the crashing waves below.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul sighed. Ivy and Petram were her friends and she loved their company, but Ivy really could do well to grow a few extra... of whatever it was shades had instead of brain cells.

She laughed and looked to Petram. "Fancy a swim?"

 

[Cresselia92]

Petram gasped. “Ah! Ivy!”

She laughed and looked to Petram. "Fancy a swim?"

“You don’t need to tell me twice!”

Without thinking for a half second longer, Petram jumped off of the cliff. As he felt the wind whizzing into his spectral ears, his entire body was cloaked in a veil of flames, making him look like a meteorite.

Paws outstretched toward Ivy and with his body becoming more gelatinous, he did his best to catch the falling Roselia.

“I gotcha! I gotcha!”

Then, his sticky paws wrapped around their target.

“Gotc—”

Splash!

 

[Adamhuarts]

The moment they touched the water, Ivy instinctively withdrew back into her ultra stone, which probably made it easier for Petram to retrieve her from the waters.

Her makeshift wings weren't so lucky though, and drifted away with the tides.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul watched Petram's fall, and his attempt to catch Ivy... Despite her being the first to evolve, it had always been Petram who was more fluid of form, and better at bending the rules a real vulpix would have to follow.

Perhaps Ivy just had the wrong approach. Petram worked with the fact he wasn't a real vulpix, while Ivy and herself did not. Ivy tried to fly with fabric wings, like a normal lifeform would need. Petram just did it.

Perhaps she needed to be more like that...

---

She didn't really have to jump now that Petram had, but she figured she decided to follow anyways. It would be no harm, and it could well end up being fun.

 

[Cresselia92]

After a few seconds of being underwater, hugging the stone where Ivy had just hidden, he quickly emerged and took a breath that he didn’t need.

“Air!”

He blinked the water out of his eyes and held the stone high into his paws. For a moment, he could hear a strange sound in his mind…

But that sound abruptly cut short when a splash sounded beside Petram. He turned around and saw Soul swimming in the water, and flashed a grin.

“I got Ivy!” he chirped, showing the small stone in his paws. Then, he tilted his head. “Time to find the coast, yeah?”

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul found she floated easily at the water's surface. "Shouldn't be far. The beach is right over there."

Swimming felt better than she'd expected. On some subconscious level, she still felt like she'd have to deal with wet fur, even though her coat was ethereal and hardly absorbent.

Being a shade was weird.

 

[Cresselia92]

Petram yapped with enthusiasm, before placing the stone between his ears and into the tuft of his head. “Okay~!”

Paddle, paddle, paddle. How lovely it felt to swim without care. Which was weird, though: why did he feel his brain wishing to both hiss at the water and whistle merrily?

Hm. A side effect of taking after two different minds, apparently.

After not too long, the two foxes reached the beach, and Petram began shaking his core. For a moment, it seemed like he had forgotten to have Ivy on his head…

 

[Adamhuarts]

Ivy's core plopped to the wet sandy shore unceremoniously. It twitched a few times, and then Ivy's body sprouted from it like a Bamboo.

"That was so lame! I didn't even get to fl—where are my legs?" Ivy looked down, and in place of her legs was a smoky rippling trail. Come to think of it, she had been thinking to herself how cool it'd be if she looked more like Petram moments before she withdrew...

"Um..." Ivy asked, her voice confused and midly frightened. She tried to stand up, only to hover over the ground steadily before face planting on the sand again.

"This is amazing! Look guys, I've evolved into... Roseghost!" Ivy said with a silly laugh.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul slowly blinked. "Oh my. Perhaps we should get Chip to check that out.l

And perhaps, Soul thought, I'll be best off sticking to thinking of myself like a ninetales for now. Wouldn't want to end up like that, or worse, a blob again, just because I thought about being a shade too hard.

 

[Cresselia92]

“Rose… ghost?” parroted Petram, staring hard at Ivy. He scratched his head with a forepaw, both intrigued and puzzled by that strange event. “But… are you a rosy ghost or a ghostly rose?”

Then, he glanced at Soul. “Chip? Why?” His gaze returned to Ivy, before looking again at Soul in alarm. “D-do you think that Ivy broke?”

In a flash, he staring into Ivy’s eyes. “Do you feel broken anywhere?!”